Who's Fault Is THIS?

I think of this old saying every time I end up in some program that doesn't work or even trying a service that tries to rip me off. All too often, it was because someone recommended it to me when they should have known what the deal was, but they kept it quiet to make a buck.

For example (you knew I would have one or I wouldn't be writing this), I got an email this morning from an optin list I subscribed to, saying that the sender was happy to be giving me a Christmas Gift. It was a free 'Lite' membership to a slick banner creation website worth $60. I figured there was a future commission for him, but I am OK with that part.

I don't really need a banner creation solution for myself, I am quite capable of creating my own with Photoshop. We all know that is NOT a solution for too many beginners, so I liked the idea of having something I could get them started with.

So I went to the website and watched the introductory video and it really did look simple. They had gobs of templates and images to use with a WYSIWYG editor that was drag and drop simple. They even had one template that let you start from scratch and use your own images.

So I decided to give it a try and signed up. That's when I discovered that all the templates (except the blank one) had a price tag on them. I had to buy $15 worth of credits and every template I saw had a 5 to 8 credit fee to use. Ahhh, no problem, I would just use the blank one, right? When I tried, I found out that template was not available to member on my level and I had to upgrade to a much higher monthly fee to use it.